emotional structure, the transformational character arc, and developmental edits

Friday, January 13, 2017

Prologue Structure Part 3

Welcome back! Let’s get back to talking about prologues!

How do I find the
right thing(s) to show in my prologue?

Define your story.

I know I put that in all italics, but that’s because it’s
super important. Are you plot-driven
or character-driven? We talked about
that during the first lesson and this is where that knowledge comes into play.

The best way to know "how" to create an effect is
to know "what" effect you're going for, because the shape of a story
as you create it (the people, story events and setting) remains constant, but
depending on where you put the emphasis and how consistent you are with your
knowledge of where you're going, the contents can be anything from experimental
lit to a Harlequin.

A plot-driven story focuses on story events, and a
character-driven story focuses on people. In other words, characters react to story events in a story where
the plot takes precedence, and story
events develop out of how a
character reacts or interacts in a character-driven
story.

If I opened Starr’s prologue with a demon in a truck of
illegals—all of whom were really hot women, and ended with a shot of the doors
opening, and a makeshift brothel with a lot of blood and dead bodies, or simply
a detached hand falling out of the door, it would be the inciting incident for
a story about dead prostitutes, demons/fallen angels and human trafficking. If
I changed the focus in my prologue and opened with a shot of Starr cutting his
wings off and walking out of Hell, it would be the inciting incident for a
character-driven story about Starr, and the prostitutes would be my “vehicle”
to show his transformational arc.

It’s all part of what makes up your voice. Where and how you
start your story—what it’s about and where the focus is, needs to do one of two
things—show the inciting incident (or why this particular story is about to
happen (think Da Vinci Code/plot-based)), or a change which then leads to this particular story happening (Jane
doesn’t believe anyone except her loves Suzy/character-arc based).

If you’re familiar with my character, Mercedes, then you
know the inciting incident for Mercedes is the fire where she can’t bring
herself to go through the fire into the Play Place to rescue her little sisters
from the pedophile—there’s too much backstory giving her a fear of fire that
goes way beyond “I don’t like fire” to “I’m terrified and can’t move.”

Pertinent backstory/the start of a transformational arc (or
core events) depends on how much motivation you need. Jane (the heroine from
post 1) doesn’t need more motivation to protect Suzy’s house than her years of
friendship with the older woman, because she doesn’t need conflicting
motivation to “not” save the house. Jane is in a character-driven story, which
means the story events develop from how Jane reacts to events, and she reacts
to events by thinking nobody except her cares for Suzy. Her prologue, showing whatever
event I pick from her years of friendship (the emotional punch of Suzy’s death,
the emotional punch of hiding in the library (see the pattern?) although in
this case, I think the death would work better) sets the stage for her arc.
Which means somewhere along the line, Jane needs to meet a guy who she thinks didn’t love Suzy, and her transformation
(since she’s in a romance) is to realize he did
love Suzy, so Jane can put down her anger and find her happily ever after.

In Jane’s case, her story is a solid whole, from prologue to
end.

Mercedes also has a strong arc, and there is no doubt she
really loves her sisters—she is a protective, loving older sister with a
capital “P.” However, like John McClain in Die
Hard, she’s up against a strong plot. I need to stop her from running into
that Play Place so the story can start. I
need to show her conflict.

I know her primary motivation is to protect her sisters
because she loves them. Protective love is not a hard emotion to get across.
However, the depth of her fear is difficult to convey.

That means if I don’t want to weave it into the story, I
need to show it. A little thought tells me that nothing I can show my reader will
be as strong as her imagination, which puts the beginning framework around
what, why and how.

In this instance, the prologue should do three things:

·Show the second fire (the what).

·Happen without the twins, since you don’t want
them paralyzed, too (how).

·And be as awful and mentally crippling as I can
make it (and why).

In other words, I’m going to show my reader "another"fire to increase the intensity of Mercedes's fear, put her into a situation where she’s (surely) going to die, jack up her emotions to the
screaming point—and end the prologue, using the Kuleshov Effect.

The reader now knows Mercedes almost died (because she’s
alive in chapter 1), it was godawful horrible, and that’s why she can’t force
herself into the Play Place, and even though Mercedes would die for her
sisters, she can’t. Her body simply won’t move. It’s only when the pedophile
grabs them that her love can push through her fear (way too late). And the
story starts.

A thought here would be that she needs to be confronted with
a fire again, at the climax, to prove she’s changed and overcome her fear (not
of the fire but of inadequacy, which is a totally different workshop, lol, and
easy to see here in this powerpoint), so she can become the woman who can be with the
hero (making Mercedes’s story a unified whole, too).

Which means regardless if it’s the story with the
prostitutes and gore, or the one focused on Starr and his wings, it would still
open the same, with Starr walking down the road looking for coffee because of
the Kuleshov Effect. What you show first,
influences what the reader sees next.

In the first story, you already know it's a
murder-thriller-paranormal because of the prologue, so it’s pretty obvious if
we open with Starr he’s going to play a large role in the investigation.

In the second one, you know who Starr is, what he’s
capable of, and something about his attitude. So when we open with Starr walking down the street it means something is about to happen to start him on a journey driven by who and
what he is. Strongly plot-driven versus strongly character-driven.

It’s all a matter of voice. Prologues work if they’re a
logical part of the story, and provide either a reason for or a jumping off
point to the rest of the story.